Nottingham Forest 0-1 Arsenal ยท Premier League ยท City Ground ยท 18 October 2026
Some wins are a performance and some are just a result. This was the second kind, and after two seasons of leaving this ground with nothing, nobody inside the away end was minded to complain about it.
Seventy-Five Percent and Almost Nothing
Three quarters of the ball. One shot on target. Those two numbers sitting next to each other tell you everything about how Forest set up and how little Arsenal found to do about it for eighty minutes.
The one shot was the winner. Noni Madueke cut inside on 80 off a stepover, hit it, and the ball went in heavily deflected. Not a goal anyone will put in a montage. It was the only time all afternoon that Arsenal got a clean strike away, and it was enough.
Arteta admitted there had been two better chances earlier that should have settled it long before.
Arteta on the Margins
"We've done something that we didn't do in the last two seasons, for sure, which is to win the game."
"We knew that the margins were going to be really small, unless you open up the game much earlier, which we had two big chances to do. That's the difference, you have to be clinical."
Honest about both halves of it: the ground has been a problem, and the way to stop it being a problem is to take the chances when they come rather than hoping for a deflection on 80.
Where That Leaves Us
Ten wins from eleven in all competitions, three straight since the break. Still right at the top, and still a side that has not yet put a convincing league performance together since the Amex.
Bayern away on Wednesday. That one will not be settled by a deflection.
Man of the Match: Noni Madueke ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ
Second week running. He has been the only Arsenal attacker reliably making something happen, and this time he finished it himself.
Image Credits https://www.arsenal.com/news/gallery-48-snaps-from-our-forest-victory-apxeP9a6wcxG